Facebook gives away homebrewed OS monitoring tool

Facebook has released an open-source tool for monitoring operating system state changes across very large infrastructures, which could help engineers quickly diagnose performance and security issues.

The tool, called Osquery, allows administrators to run SQL-based queries on operating system characteristics stored in a high-performance database, collecting data such as running processes, loaded kernel modules and open networking connections, wroteMike Arpaia, a Facebook software engineer.

In the last few months, Facebook let other companies try Osquery after "it became clear to us that maintaining insight into the low-level behavior of operating systems is not a problem which is unique to Facebook," he wrote.

In a separate post, Arpaia described one component of Osquery, which is a low-footprint, distributed host daemon. An admin can schedule queries, and the daemon collects the results and creates logs showing OS state changes, which give an indication of the network's health.

Since Osquery will have a deep reach, Facebook wants to make sure its code doesn't have any bugs. It has made Osquery eligible for its bug hunting program, which pays a minimum of US$2,500 for valid vulnerability submissions, Arpaia wrote.

Privilege escalation and remote code execution vulnerabilities are examples of types of problems Facebook wants to find, he wrote.

Osquery is cross platform and will work with a variety of operating systems such as Mac OS X, CentOS and Ubuntu.

Slideshows

Selling beyond the CIO – How partners can influence the new breed of tech buyers

This ARN Roundtable, in association with Oracle, highlighted the emergence of a new breed of technology buyer, assessing how partners can engage outside of IT, and the skills required to sell across new business units.

Copyright 2018 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.